Modern communication networks support large, varied, and growing populations of users and an ever increasing gamut of user services and user applications for users who access the networks using any of various stationary and/or mobile user equipment (UE). The networks span not only global populations and geography, but a plethora of methods, devices, infrastructures, and protocols for propagating data, voice, and video content provided by a host of different large and small service providers.
As the various software and hardware resources that support the networks, configure paths along which network packets propagate in the networks, and provide services mediated by the networks have become more sophisticated, the resources, which may be referred to as network equipment (NE), have become fungible and logically abstracted away from their particular physical structures. The physical devices and apparatus underlying modern communication networks have become commodity resources that are configurable by software to provide virtualizations of network functions, referred to as “Network Functions Virtualization” (NFV), and “Software Defined Networks” (SDNs). And dedicated physical devices that provide particular network functionalities have been or are being replaced by software entities that access the physical commodities of a network, and/or other software entities of the network, on an “as need” basis to communicate with each other and provide functionalities required by the networks. The zoology of software entities are conventionally referred to as virtual entities, with a particular virtual entity typically distinguished by a name of a functionality it provides.
The extensive, complex infrastructure of many modern communication networks typically comprise a mix of dedicated physical devices and an ever increasing, if not dominant number, of virtual network entities engaged in an incessant packet exchange chatter approaching hundreds of gigabits per second (Gbps). Monitoring and troubleshooting the networks as much as possible in real time to maintain performance that provides acceptable quality of service (QoS) and user quality of experience (QoE) for the multitude of services that the networks provide has become a demanding challenge.